It chanced on this particular occasion, that Mrs Gamp had been up all
the previous night, in attendance upon a ceremony to which the usage of
gossips has given that name which expresses, in two syllables, the curse
pronounced on Adam. It chanced that Mrs Gamp had not been regularly
engaged, but had been called in at a crisis, in consequence of her great
repute, to assist another professional lady with her advice; and thus it
happened that, all points of interest in the case being over, Mrs Gamp
had come home again to the bird-fancier's and gone to bed. So when Mr
Pecksniff drove up in the hackney cab, Mrs Gamp's curtains were drawn
close, and Mrs Gamp was fast asleep behind them.
If the bird-fancier had been at home, as he ought to have been, there
would have been no great harm in this; but he was out, and his shop was
closed. The shutters were down certainly; and in every pane of glass
there was at least one tiny bird in a tiny bird-cage, twittering and
hopping his little ballet of despair, and knocking his head against the
roof; while one unhappy goldfinch who lived outside a red villa with
his name on the door, drew the water for his own drinking, and mutely
appealed to some good man to drop a farthing's-worth of poison in it.
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